Wipers and other products are often printed with certain chemicals to form logos, hide food stains, etc. Unfortunately, however, the harsh environments to which these products are exposed may cause the printed chemicals to be removed after only a short period of time. For example, wipers in the food service industry are often used with harsh cleaners, such as bleach (e.g., sodium hypochlorite), acid-based soaps, or commercial mixtures, e.g., The Clorox Company's Formula 409® “all purpose” cleaner, which contains water, detergents, and the grease cutter 2-butoxyethanol (an alcohol). Cleaning solutions also often contain sanitizing chemicals, which may readily remove the treatment from a printed substrate.
In response to this problem, treatment compositions were developed that remain on the fabric when exposed to common chemical cleaning chemicals. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,853,859 to Levy, et al., which is assigned to Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc., describes a treatment composition that comprises a room temperature curable latex polymer, a pigment, and a cure promoter. The treatment composition may be “pattern printed” onto a high pulp nonwoven composite using printing techniques, such as flexographic printing, gravure printing, screen printing, or ink jet printing. When pattern printed onto a substrate and dried, the fabric retains a colorfastness above 3 when exposed to liquids with a pH from about 2 to about 13.
Despite the advances attained, however, a need for improvement nevertheless remains. For instance, “pattern printing” of fabrics with such compositions may sometimes result in the production of lint, which is defined as individual airborne fibers and fiber fragments. Specifically, much of the user-contacting surface of the printed fabrics remain uncoated with the treatment. Accordingly, fibers and fiber fragments may be easily removed during use. Unfortunately, however, previous efforts to reduce lint by coating the entire surface have proven problematic because the absorbency of the fabric is adversely affected.
As such, a need currently exists for a fabric that has low lint and maintains good absorbency, and yet retains the desired colorfastness when applied with a treatment composition.